Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: sao123
Social Security has been a pyramid scheme from the beginning. Those who paid in first received money from those who paid in second ? and so on, generation after generation. The US's population cannot grow forever, the economy could not support it, and Eventually we will run out of people to pyramid and the whole thing will collapse.
I'm sorry you fell that way, maybe someday you will grow up and get over it.
Get over what? Why shouldn't people get upset that they're paying into a retirement system from which they will probably never get any benfit? Sure like I said earlier, they're not entitled to any of the benefits, but if politicians keep spouting nonsense which makes it sound like they are, expect people to be upset. Lets call it what it is--it's a welfare tax. Sure how much you get out of it theoretically depends on what you put into it in the first place, but you're not guarenteed to any of it. Ultimately, you're still being paid using tax money the current working people are paying. If retirees are paid with tax money they put in, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but they're not. The problem goes back paying the first couple waves of retirees an obscene amount of return for what they put in, but the only way that it could have been done is by borrowing against future generations. Lets see paid $25, got back $66k--that's a return of 264000%. Is it any wonder the system will break eventually?
If you try to call SS a ponzi scheme, how can you call any other government program, including the military, anything other than a ponzi scheme?
With other government programs like the military, you're theoretically getting benefits your current tax money is paying for. You need a highway, the tax money you paid is paying for that highway. You need a military to defend the nation, your tax money is paying for that military. Not quite true with how we're running a deficit of course. Personally I don't think that any business or the government should borrow more than it has to or stay in debt longer than it has to, but social security to me seems like a system that's based on perpetual borrowing. "You pay into it now and we promise that we'll pay you back once you retire."
I've heard the argument that debt for the government is good for the economy, but I don't buy it. For me it makes sense with a business analogy. When a business is first starting out, it might be good to have debt or run a negative for a while if you have no choice and it'll ultimately help you grow to the point where you have a profit. However, if you stay in debt constantly and never make a profit, you'll go out of business eventually. Imagine all the things a business that is profitable can do in terms of investment and building infrastructure once it is profitable and don't have to borrow money to grow. I don't see the government being so different where the way of thinking doesn't apply. Imagine if the government doesn't need to borrow money to run all its program. People wouldn't have government bonds to invest in and that part of the economy would cease to exist, but there are other investments out there.
Instead of using money that is collected by the current generation to take care of a problem for the current generation, we're borrowing money to pay for our benefits. We're forcing a debt onto later generations for something that they had no say in and probably won't get any benefit from or if they do, it'll be less than what they paid in. It's not like with a highway where it's not as bad to borrow from future generations to pay for it as future generations will also likely use that same highway. Or the military where paying for the troops theoretically creates an environment that's safe so that future generation can prosper. Instead, we're borrowing from future generations with no guarentee they'll get anything out of it in return. Of course, the same was done to us by the previous generation, but at some point we've got to stop the cycle. I think the only viable solution in the long run is to phase out social security so that no one generation gets hit the hardest when it fails.
I was going to write something else, but I've forgotten what--and I haven't even reached social security retirement age yet. Not a good sign at all. Oh well, it's late and hopefully what I wrote makes some sense.
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